


Driving Lessons

by Duck_Life



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Disability, Driving, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, One-Eyed Carl Grimes, Season/Series 06, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-29
Updated: 2016-11-29
Packaged: 2018-09-03 00:09:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8688964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duck_Life/pseuds/Duck_Life
Summary: Rick tries to teach Carl how to drive. Set right before "The Next World."





	

The dart sails out of his hand and buries itself in the wall three inches to the left of the dart board. Then another. And another. Carl rolls the next dart in his fingers, trying to tamp down his frustration. Before he can throw again, Rick pokes his head into the door. “How’s it goin’?”

Carl glances from his dad to the dartboard, to the expanse of wall peppered with tiny holes. “Oh, I’m just… nothing.” He shakes his head, trying to let his bangs fall over the bandage on his face. It’s new and different and he can’t get used to it. But, then, taking it off is worse.

Rick walks in the room, Judy balanced in his arms. She waves at Carl and he waves back, but his heart’s not in it. Taking a deep breath and shifting his daughter higher up, Rick stares at the wall. He sighs. “You know, I hate to tell you,” he says to his son, “but you weren’t exactly good at darts before.”

Carl huffs a laugh and goes to get the darts out of the wall. “Denise says I should try and… I guess, relearn my new line of sight.”

“Hey, I think Olivia’s got some mitts and baseballs in with the rec stuff,” Rick says. “Maybe we can work on that aim. Get your pitching arm up to shape.” He smiles down at Judith. “And _you_ could be umpire.” She giggles.

Carl stares at him, which, yeah, still just as much attitude as when he used to do it with both eyes intact. “You want us to play catch?”

“Yeah, it sounded funny to me too.” He’s out of his depth here. Losing an eye would be traumatic to a kid even _pre_ -apocalypse. And Rick still wouldn’t know what to do. “How’re you feeling?”

“Fine,” Carl says, his back to Rick as he collects the darts. “Denise gave me some pretty good painkillers. And it’s healing fast.” Rick’s pretty sure Carl knows he wasn’t taking about the physical stuff, but he lets it slide. “She was telling me that she knew a guy who lost an eye. And he had to go in and renew his driver’s license, like, every six months or they wouldn’t let him drive.” He shrugs. “So I guess it’s nice I don’t have to deal with that.”

“You don’t even have a license.” Rick says it like he’s just realized it— which he kind of has. It’s one of those things that’s obvious but still doesn’t hit for a long time. Like the fact that his son will never graduate— or _go to_ — high school. Like the fact that his kids won’t have the Internet, or a president, or steady food.

Carl laughs. “What, you wanna try the DMV?” he says. “I mean, Dad, I think everyone at the DMV was kind of _already_ walkers before the world ended.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Rick says, thinking. “No, but you should learn to drive.”

“Why?”

“We still have cars, we still have gas,” Rick points out. “You should learn to drive.” His mind’s made up. “Get your gun and meet me downstairs,” he says. “We’re gonna go have your first driving lesson.”

Rick hands Judith over to Michonne and then heads downstairs to grab the keys. Carl’s waiting with his gun and his hat. “You sure this is worth the gas we’d be using?”

“Sure,” Rick shrugs. “We’ll make it worthwhile. We’ll find some food to bring back or something.” He tosses the keys to his son, who grasps at the air while they clatter to the floor.

“Sorry,” Carl says. “Depth perception.”

“Right.” Rick opens the door. “This is gonna be fun.”

In the car, Carl actually looks a little excited as he buckles up and starts flipping through the CDs. He pops Styx’s Greatest Hits in the stereo and starts bopping to “Renegade” before Rick slides into the passenger’s seat and shuts the music off. “No distractions,” he says. “You gotta keep your eyes on the road.”

“Eye.”

“Right, right,” Rick says, and then he does the unthinkable. He takes off Carl’s hat and tosses it in the backseat.

“ _Hey_.”

“You need your vision unobstructed.” Carl gestures angrily to the giant bandage covering the space where his right eye used to be. “And that’s all the more reason you need your vision unobstructed.” Rick settles back in his seat. “Now put it in reverse.”

Once outside the gate, Carl keeps his whole body tightly locked. Arms at right angles, shoulders tight, jaw clenched. Rick makes sure the road is clear and then he starts in on his son’s posture.

“Relax a little,” he says. “I’m right here. I’m not gonna let anything bad happen.” It feels like a lie. It’s always proved a lie in the past. Still, it’s kind of nice to think that the biggest danger they might be in is a car crash. A messed up turn by an inexperienced sixteen-year-old driver. It feels normal and ordinary and not at all like them.

“Gas right, brake left,” Carl mumbles under his breath.

“Not inspiring a lot of confidence there, buddy.”

“Shh.”

Carl drives in a (mostly) straight line down the road. It’s when he gets to the first intersection that he slams on the brakes, panicky. They jolt forward. “Sorry!”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Rick says, trying not to smile. It feels so much like teaching a normal kid how to drive on a normal day in a normal world. Like once they’re done they’ll drive through Sonic and then talk about grades on the way home. Like they’ll have a meal that isn’t rationed and watch TV and go to sleep knowing that when they wake up everything will still be fine. “Next time, you wanna tap the brake. Gentle. Ease your foot down. Just imagine there’s a little baby turtle under the pedal.”

“What the _hell_ , Dad?”

“Worked for me when I was a kid learning to drive.”

“Which way do I turn?”

Rick navigates and instructs, leaning over once in a while to adjust how Carl’s holding the steering wheel.

“How are your mirrors looking?” he asks at one point.

“Why?” Carl says. “There’s no cars. Anywhere. Perks of the end of the world.”

“Just check your mirrors,” Rick says.

“Fine.” Carl glances up and over, taps his fingers on the steering wheel. “Uh. My… driver’s side mirror and my rearview mirror are clear.”

“Passenger’s side?”

Carl grips the steering wheel tighter and then turns to check the other mirror. His face is as white as his knuckles and Rick feels like he can see the stress coming off of his son in waves. “Clear.”

“Pull over.”

“Dad, I checked it, it’s fine.”

“Pull the car over.”

He pulls into the parking lot of what used to be a Kroger. Long since looted dry, it sits vacant of people and walkers alike. Carl and Rick pull into a parking space— it’s a good parking job, Rick notes, not that it’ll ever really matter. Parking spaces and social norms and safety all went out the window years ago.

“I’m fine,” Carl says immediately. It’s the most defensive, unfine “I’m fine” that Rick’s ever heard, which is really saying something because he’s said his fair share of them.

“You’re not,” Rick says, reaching over the switching the ignition off. “Carl, none of us are. And you don’t have to be. Okay? You don’t have to be fine. You just have to be here.”

“Where’s here?” Carl says, turning in his seat, his hands balled up into frustrated fists. “Out here? Outside the walls? I can’t. I can’t shoot a gun, I can’t drive.”

“But there’s still things you _can_ do—”

“Like what?” he says. “Get shot again? Completely miss a walker near us because of my _giant blind spot_?” He knocks his bangs back out of his face. “I’m a liability out here, Dad. And I know I don’t really do much inside the walls, either. Face it. I’m basically as useless as Judith.”

Rick sighs and leans back against the seat. It’s not like he didn’t _know_ this is how Carl felt. He was just… avoiding it. Hoping otherwise. Frequently these days, he finds himself wishing Hershel were still around. Right now, he wishes Hershel were here to talk to Carl. Discuss his feelings about losing a leg compared to Carl losing an eye.

Hell, he’d settle for any other person in a similar situation. That’s the ugly, bitter truth that he tries not to think about— there’s a reason there aren’t any other people in a similar situation. Most people who get shot twice, especially these days, don’t live to talk about it. Most people who have lost a limb, or an eye, or gone blind, don’t make it long after that. This world was never built for people who were different or for people with disabilities, and that hasn’t changed. It’s just gotten worse.

Rick doesn’t know what to say so he jumps on the last thing Carl said.

“Yeah, you’re right,” he sighs. “Judy doesn’t do anything. We should just toss her out in the woods. After all, people are only worth the work they can do for us.”

“That’s not… you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Rick says. “You think because you got shot in the head you get to mope around and be a moody teenager about it. Well, newsflash, that ain’t the world we live in anymore. And you’re not important to me because of what you can do for me, whether you can fire a gun or go on a run. You’re important to me because you’re my son and I love you.” He claps Carl on the knee. “You make weird faces at your sister just to see her laugh. You hang onto photographs just like your mom used to. You went through all the shit that’s been thrown at you and you’re still kind. You’re still good. And that would all be true even if you lost the other eye.”

Carl lets that sit for a moment, and then he yanks out the keys and stuffs them in his pocket. “Come on,” he says, grabbing his hat. “Let’s go see if there’s any food left in there.”

They find corned beef, olives, and two bags of veggie chips. “Tonight we feast,” Carl announces, tossing the food in the back of the car.

Rick drives back, but Carl watches him closely the whole time, examining his every move. Next time, he’s going to know how to brake right. And he’s going to remember to check his mirrors and make sure there’s nothing creeping up behind them. Next time.  

 


End file.
